phil screwed up in game 3

he gets ton of credit and rightfully so when things go right. But he did a few things that bothered me in game 3:

1-Kobe hit 7-9 fg's in the first quarter and looked hot. After the first, he didnt re enter the game until 6:30 remianed in the second. WHen you factor in the amount of time between the quarters and the timeouts and deadballs, and everything, he sat for about 20+ minutes. He imediately looked like he was out of rythim when he came bcak in. With the amount of time in between games and the 8 day layoff before the WC FInals started, sitting him until he is out of rythim makes no sense.

2-ANdrew BYnum played 8 minutes. I know he got in foul trouble. BUt i dont care what the situation is, bynum is far too valuable in a size matchup with the suns to play 8 minutes and only go 1-1 from the field. Bynum always takes a backseat in the playoffs. BUt game 3 was ridiculous. Not a man alive can have an impact in 8 minutes without a single play getting called for him. Wonder why Amare dominated the paint?

3-Team lacked direction. Far too many plays where artest or odom took a quick shot or there was little ball movement working to get it inside. At some point you have to call out these guys who are not bringing it. He finally pulled odom with 3 minutes reminaing and put josh powell in, but that was too little too late. Guys were screwing around all game and phil looked more concerned with Criag Sagers outfit in between quarters.

Then why are you complaining? Did you think you can just sweep the Suns easily? The Lakers will win this series, but to expect them to win every game? Its the playoffs, your going to get the best out of every team you play. I swear the LAKERS FANS ARE THE MOST SPOILED FANS in the NBA, they loose one game and everyone is pissed off. This series is over, its just a matter of time till the Lakers wrap it up.

again, you are really being over dramatic. Who said i was pissed off? This is a chat site and i thought i would share a few observations as to why the lakers lost. Relax, its called chatting on the internet. It would be pretty boring around here if no one ever criticized someone or brought up negative observations.

Andrew Bynum didn't play alot because he was ineffective on D. He feel asleep, and allowed Amare to get looks at the rim off of pick-and-roll action. Bynum had either 3 or 4 fouls last night, and all of the fouls were a result of him falling asleep and letting Amare catch the ball and get shots at the rim of pick and roll action. Amare converted a few of those baskets too. Andrew Bynum was simply ineffective when he was on the floor, as was pretty much useless other than to foul Amare and he even got tip-slammed on by Robin Lopez off of an offensive rebound he was staring at. I agree with Coach Jackson's decision to severely limit Bynum's PT. He was awful last night to be honest.

This series will be over in 5 as I predicted, they just need this series to stretch out because the Finals start on June 3rd. Phil was playing around last night oh well. I'll take another championship, we did win 8 games in a row. Finals start June 3rd. This will be Kobe's and Fisher's 7th Finals, put that in perspective!! Lehype has been in the NBA for 7 years.

lilperz I agree with your observation but the thing is Phil knows his players. There could be a reason he did what he did. If you are as successful as Phil Jackson certain things that dont make sense to you are probably not as bad as you think. I did not see the game but it would appear that Suns took off in the fourth quarter and they got mad trips to the line.

I think the biggest problem was the Lakers didn't adjust to the Zone PHX threw at them. Im sure game 4 will be different if that happens again. I love an underdog but LA is just too big/talented to lose like that.

The biggest problem with sitting Kobe 20 plus real time minutes is not rythem its stiffness. Any older YMCA guy will tell you that when your forced to sit down after losing a game for 20-30 minutes, you get back up and your knees/ankles are really stiff. Your whole body is now cold. Its hard to push through that and it takes you atleast a few good trips up and down the court to start to loosen up again. I know these guys are pro's but the human body always reacts the same way for everyone as you get older.